A New Day, a New Entrepreneur, a New Idea, a New Product...And So it Begins

[Brewmacker]

Wonderful people of TheFastlaneForum thank you for the helpfulness, the openness and the encouragement I have read these past few days.

This will be my daily blog from zero to hero, or zero to hero to zero, or zero to... well you get it.

Day 0: Life is going great! or so i tell myself
Day 1: Finished the book Unscripted in numb shock
Day 2: Lying depressed on couch with curtains closed
Day 3: Lying depressed on couch with curtains closed
Day 4: Still depressed & signed up to TFL, started reading
Day 5: Sore eyes from all the reading, increased curiosity, increased hopefulness
Day 6: Read, Read, Read, ideas,ideas, ideas, sore head & sore eyes
Day 7: Solid good idea found, based on people's needs in my country. Bare-bones strategy drawn up
Day 8: Read, Read, Your advice and discussions are integrated into the business plan/strategy document.
Day 9: Plan is 40% ready. Read, read, need to learn how to code! Go home, Shit, iPad Pro says....NO to X-Code! Need to buy an apple laptop...shit!
Day 10: Looked at the current iPAD pro in the shop, F*ck that €€€! Found a 2012 iPad Pro on online market €250, should be enough to kick start the X-code learning process. Ill upgrade when I need to upgrade.
Day 11: With the help of Udemy Full day learning IOS X-code and Swift
Day 12: With the help of Udemy Full day learning IOS X-code and Swift - managed to load an app/picture on my phone
Day 13: Went to see KISS, it was awesome! Watched all the programming videos I had already done on the train to cement the knowledge.
Day 14: Hungover and tired from night before, and still made three simple apps & installed & tested them on my phone.
Day 15:
After much consideration, I reached out to my best friend who has been developing Android & Web based apps in the industry & farming sector for the past 10 years, to ask him to join this & any future venture.
He has such a wealth of knowledge in programming and data acquisition, manipulation & storage which will take me years to understand.
He has until Christmas to decide, but sooner the better. As I cannot pay him now and I have offered him to come up with an appropriate share in the company for which he must defend (as I have a figure in mind naturally). Of course he will be responsible to come up with his % of any future investment so that should persuade him into making a fair offer. I trust my friend like a brother and I do not doubt his competence in his field.
The primary reason for this decision was to free up time to learn and practice the other key business skills for this product namely; UX design, marketing and copy writing, dealing with governmental bodies and tax authorities and to free up time for market research and networking.
I will still continue to develop the IOS App as this is fundamental to managing this business and the expectations of future contractors & staff (see below). The advantage is, I could have a side kick to boost this learning curve.
I gave him one requirement before making his decision, and that is to read 'Unscripted "

Day 16: to be cont...

 

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[Madman1996]

Hey could you explain more about the bare bones strategy

 

[Brewmacker]

Hey could you explain more about the bare bones strategy

Hey Madman,

This is barebones-ish. I have added some extra details for others to troubleshoot. So I welcome feedback or improvement points.

Firstly I know there is nothing like this currently in our market and more & more this gap will need to be filled potentially on a full European or hopefully also internationally.

• there are a few potential alternative ways to achieve what I will offer
• but they are poorly organised
• not intuitive
• not trustworthy
• not well marketed or advertised

Strategy:
1) Before doing any detailed market research:

• Learn how to code (web design, web app-design, android design, IOS design) - 6 Months
• Build a barebones App ready for testing

2) Do market research

• Talk to people, business' and Legal and Governmental Bodies

3) Go or No Go Point for chosen idea

• This might seem risky so far, to focus on a business that I have no idea will add value to the world after working hard for 6 months.
• I know that online business is the way I want to go. Purely because it is outside the realms of 09.00-17.00 and all that is needed is a Laptop and a phone.
• I see the next 6 months as an educational journey where in the end these new skills can be quickly adapted into another business direction should the market decide

Should the App prove to be valuable to the target audience then the real work begins

4) Product Development:

• Develop a Brand
• Register trademark
• Develop UX design (support from family member)
• Dual Language
• MVP Minimum Viable Product first, then once app takes off reinvest income to add more features
• Start Local or in the nearest biggest city?
• Consider focusing on website, mobile website and IOS app
• Once income is generated consider hiring best friend to develop Android App
• Contact local regulatory body
• Draw up legal documentation
• If possible, safeguard/patent concept/algorithm

Execution:

• Make promotional video + web pages + pamphlets + stickers to explain and sell value of the product
• Travel around during execution phase and recruit intrest from absolute minimum of 500 people,
• During Execution Phase limited free registration for local business',
• Contact public members and sign them up for free
• Poster Campgn. with RFQ code – links to beta-version of app or website - allows the public sign-up in adv. of offical roll out

Post-roll out (aim < 2 years before start date)

Once the concept is generating sufficient income:

• Review Fundamentals of Strategy and adapt strategy based on the customer's feedback from the previous period
• Work out any technical glitches
• Improve the App by adding more features that are listed in the strategy document (this is an iterative approach as there is a lot of potential here.)
• Develop interfaces with an additional 5 international languages
• Review current payment scheme, can this be improved to be more fair for all parties involved? Are the overheads higher than expected etc.
• Roll out new version following a similar execution scheme as above but in other international cities.

Eat, Sleep, Rave repeat.

This is my first time so go easy on me

 

[Madman1996]

Can I outsource the coding part 6 month's for coding along seems very much and you can make offline a good fastlane road to ?

 

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[Brewmacker]

Can I outsource the coding part 6 month's for coding along seems very much and you can make offline a good fastlane road to ?

I agree, its not exactly 'fast lane', Yet. Let me try to explain why...

In my Design Management job (where I am currently working), I do not know or need to know every clever technical detail on a multi-million Euro technical design project.
In the past 10 years I have quickly been promoted from engineer, to senior engineer, to lead engineer and finally to design manager.
Only from travelling through this journey, now when I have a new project I simply 'know' how to get shit done. I know how to challenge a bid offer, set-up the schedule, map the process and dictate the type, number of and level of quality of documentation. When the project is running I can challenge the engineers on a technical level because I know what is possible, I can steer and when I need to, jump into the deign team an innovate and/or educate.

In my current position I don't even blink at a €3 million design budget. Why? Because I know my shit and I can mitigate these (foreseen and unforeseen) risks through experience and by planning for and asking for contingencies.

Getting an app designed by another party is not only very expensive for a newbie, but also carries significant Risk because I cannot map out the pitfalls in the full process. I will not go and spend a lot of money on an App only to have not learned anything of how it was built and essentially take a gamble with a lot my money on a first time venture that will inevitable flop (unless I am very lucky).

Please remember I am doing this for the first time and I am not expecting to make a successful business, it will most likely suck haha. When/if this project fails, it will not be a failure, but a success because of all the knowledge that I have gained from making mistakes throughout this first journey.
How do you think I will feel when I pay someone to do the job and it fails? Then I have acquired nothing and lost all my savings.

Instead please look at it this way. In 6-12 months (at a minimum) i hope to:

learn how to design, build and program my own bare-bones App and website (skills acquired)
learn how to get a trademark (skills acquired)
Release it on the market by myself (skills acquired)
Market the product myself (skills acquired)
Do door to door and sell the idea (skills acquired)
Figure out how to deal with tax authorites (skills aquired)
Dealing with regulatory authorities (Skills aquired)
plus much more... (skills acquired)

One year later and when my business idea fails or under performs. Then what?

I am going to be in a pretty damn good position to start a new project. With all the skills and knowledge achieved from Project 1 and consequently it will go sooooo much faster for Project 2. Maybe still not 'fast lane' then, but what about Project 10-15? or 20-25 when I can spit one project out per month? When I have enough knowledge to outsource and hire people?

So simply Madman, I am not in this to get 'rich quick' and believe me I am not here to get 'rich slow' either haha.
When I master this process through hard work and correction/adaptive actions caused by the many many mistakes I will inevitably make in the next few years, then I will have succeeded.



I am not sure if what is written is inline, or not, with the fastlane principles. Advice and opinions are most welcome if your experience tells you that i am headed on a doomed path.

Thanks in advance

B

 

[Brewmacker]

Update 08/07/2019:

IOS programming: No progress
Mentoring: Potential Mentor Found


IOS programming: No progress
No progress this past week with regards to programming IOS.
Why?
I flew to England to hide from my company & engineering team so as to work undisturbed 12 hours a day on a product/system design that my team has been working on for two years.
Every once in a while I have to work my a$$ off to ensure that the design is finalized to the level of quality and safety expected.
I just now e-mailed the package to our procurement department & my beautiful toy will be manufactured finally.
Realization
I say "my beautiful toy", this is in fact my employer's toy. I do not own it, I will not make money from it or sell the IPR or license the Patent. How have I found that this so acceptable for so long? And how fantastic is it to be awake to the idea, that if I want, I can simply do this myself should I choose?
Anyhoo, I digress. So no IOS learning.


Mentoring: Potential Mentor Found
This weekend I was at a festival with my family & shared the idea with my sister who specialists in rapid product (APP, LOI, MI etc.) development, marketing and UX design. She was able to list off 3-4 different apps that have tried to do what I am doing & they all fizzled out or failed. She did admit that I have a very different approach & she will send me the case studies to I can study their pit successes and mistakes.

She is really enthusiastic to help me succeed and I think she will be an amazing resource.

Her approach is completely different to the journey that I proposed. She does have an experienced team of 20 developers & marketeers working around her & she explained it takes around 2 years to get a successful MVP product on the market.

I couldn't really make her understand that need to have a grasp of the complete process before jumping in with both feet and that when final execution phase comes, the detailed process learning and experiences will begin. Or maybe I simply couldn't fully understand her point of view of the process.

This has solidified the idea that sharing your ideas with experienced people will massively accelerate your progress and lower this risk of wasting time going in the wrong direction.


Side note:
So I could not edit my original post? After a quick search found out why:

Edit Function for Posts?

Dear All, is there any function to edit a post in a thread. (Esp. for updating content) Can't find one. Thanks for your help! Hannes

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Fair play MJ.